Bioware and Pandemic merge
Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 9:44 pm
Below is an article from the January 2006 issue of Game Informer magazine. (Mods: If this is an inappropriate topic for the NWN General Discussion forum, feel free to move it elsewhere.)
We'll see where this goes.
Both Pandemic and Bioware have made some first-rate Star Wars games (Battlefront and KOTOR, respectively), so I would speculate that we'll see more in the future. It's hard to say whether or not this will affect the future of the NWN franchise, except that they will probably have more operating capital to bankroll something like, say, NWN2."Bioware and Pandemic Merge, Bono Acts as Midwife"
Renowned developers BioWare (Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights) and Pandemic (Star Wars: Battlefront, Mercenaries) have announced that they are forming a new holding company named BioWare/Pandemic that basically merges the two companies into one entity. The pair will now become one of the world's largest independent development houses, representing a combined investment of over $300 million.
Facilitating the deal was Elevation Partners, a venture-capital outfit headed by EA president John Riccitiello and which features U2 singer Bono as one of its board members. Last year, Elevation made a failed bid for publisher/developer Eidos, which was eventualy bought by SCi Entertainment for 103 million [British] pounds.
The founders of BioWare and Pandemic (Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka for BioWare and Josh Resnick and Andrew Goldman for Pandemic) will become shareholders and senior executives in the new company, with Elevation's Riccitiello as the CEO. Both BioWare and Pandemic will remain as separate brands, and each will retain their own video game properties and studio locations around the world. Because of this keeping of the status quo, both BioWare and Pandemic will retain their existing partnerships with their publishers.
Joint CEO of BioWare Muzyka says that this deal is unlike the standard practice of larger publishers swallowing up a smaller developer in that not only will each studio retain its identity, but that it's a "partnership of equals". Pandemic's Resnick stresses that since the operational structure of each company will remain intact, the employees of the studios will be protected and retained, maintaining the quality of the titles. "Our creative, production, and operational staff are as vital to our success as directors and stars are to blockbuster films, and we are giving them the stakeholder recognition they deserve. Our mutual goal is to build the industry's best place for talent."
Finally, rumors are that Elevation Partners is not done in its wheeling and dealing. The venture capital group is said to be looking at acquiring Peter Molyneux's Lionhead Studios.
We'll see where this goes.